So I just read through some of the newsletters ....

[Derek]

And I didn't think they were that bad.

Does this make me a racist, homophobic bigot?

All the racist comments came from that one newsletter everyone already knew about. The comments went overboard, but in the context of the article, which dealt with the LA riots, it seems the statements were more poorly worded than outright racist.

The "kind words" about David Duke amounts to recognizing his success in an election and examining why he was able to achieve that success despite his bad past. Politically incorrect? Perhaps, but hardly offensive.

The comments about MLK go overboard, but it's well recognized today that King was an adulterer with a sordid personal life. The comments about homosexuality are politically incorrect and offensive, but I can't imagine Christian conservatives looking at those statements and deciding not to support him because of those. Incidentally, Mike Huckabee is on record making critical comments of homosexuality that many would consider even more offensive than these. And this was the early 90s, when this type of stuff was still considered acceptable.

Most of the other stuff isn't even worth responding to.

Overall, it seems to me that this isn't a big deal at all. Especially since we know Paul didn't write the material.

 

[rockwell]

Batten down your hatches, Derek, you're about to be excommunicated from the Church of What's Happening Now.

RECANT HERETIC, THEN WE'LL SEE IF YOU FLOAT.

 

[Johncjackson]

And I didn't think they were that bad.

Does this make me a racist, homophobic bigot?

All the racist comments came from that one newsletter everyone already knew about. The comments went overboard, but in the context of the article, which dealt with the LA riots, it seems the statements were more poorly worded than outright racist.

The "kind words" about David Duke amounts to recognizing his success in an election and examining why he was able to achieve that success despite his bad past. Politically incorrect? Perhaps, but hardly offensive.

The comments about MLK go overboard, but it's well recognized today that King was an adulterer with a sordid personal life. The comments about homosexuality are politically incorrect and offensive, but I can't imagine Christian conservatives looking at those statements and deciding not to support him because of those. Incidentally, Mike Huckabee is on record making critical comments of homosexuality that many would consider even more offensive than these. And this was the early 90s, when this type of stuff was still considered acceptable.

Most of the other stuff isn't even worth responding to.

Overall, it seems to me that this isn't a big deal at all. Especially since we know Paul didn't write the material.

Taken in the context ( and I think everything should be taken in proper context), you have a point.

The problem for a lot of people, notably cultural libertarians, is the whole message is philosophically inconsistent with the current message of the campaign and movement.

These newsletters are written by a racial collectivist. Maybe you could call it social conservative. But it isn't libertarian and definitely not individualist.

So when people mention Ron Paul's other writings and the true assertion that individualism is opposed to racism as racism is an ugly form of collectivism- they are correct.

However, the author of those newsletters DOES NOT believe in individualism whatsoever. Or perhaps they do, but they were pandering to paranoid social-cons in the militia movement and other fringes.

People want to know how a man running on individualism either wrote or associated ( or still associates) himself with ugly collectivists on such a level.

Then again, a lot of libertarians don't consider Ron Paul a libertarian and have seen him as more of a social conservative pandering to the collectivists anyway.

If you take him at his word he is an individualist. And the collectivists just happen to support his limited government beliefs, not the cultural/philosophical ones.

 

[thisisgiparti]

maybe a good point would be that taken into the context of the time, many people waited to tell Ron Paul about the newsletter. the contents got progressively offensive, but at first it was so inconsistent with what they knew of Ron Paul that they thought nothing of it. it was a small local newsletter. how many people actually read it?

 

[rockwell]

I will say one thing, the single most overused word of the entire campaign is "collectivist". Stalin must be spinning in his temerature controlled, ph neutral, glass crypt.

If I never hear that word again it will be too soon, you guys are starting to sound like scientologists.

 

[DaronWestbrooke]

And I didn't think they were that bad.

Does this make me a racist, homophobic bigot?

All the racist comments came from that one newsletter everyone already knew about. The comments went overboard, but in the context of the article, which dealt with the LA riots, it seems the statements were more poorly worded than outright racist.

The "kind words" about David Duke amounts to recognizing his success in an election and examining why he was able to achieve that success despite his bad past. Politically incorrect? Perhaps, but hardly offensive.

The comments about MLK go overboard, but it's well recognized today that King was an adulterer with a sordid personal life. The comments about homosexuality are politically incorrect and offensive, but I can't imagine Christian conservatives looking at those statements and deciding not to support him because of those. Incidentally, Mike Huckabee is on record making critical comments of homosexuality that many would consider even more offensive than these. And this was the early 90s, when this type of stuff was still considered acceptable.

Most of the other stuff isn't even worth responding to.

Overall, it seems to me that this isn't a big deal at all. Especially since we know Paul didn't write the material.

The problem is, thanks to Benton, we can't use this angle. Benton issued a statment for the campaign that these weren't Dr. Paul's words, he never though this way, and anyone who did is simple minded. That kills trying to defend the comments.